Recently there have been many questions banded about regarding the so called ‘Vince update’.  It is considered by many that this update is to affect the way in which Google treats ‘brands’.  So firstly, what do Google consider to be a brand and secondly, what kind of difference can be expected?

Google say that they do not see or recognise the term ‘brands’, rather they prefer to consider each search term weather brand or not on aspects such as trust, authority, page rank, quality and reputation.  From Google’s point of view there are no brands and they have not updated the algorithm in respects to ‘brand’ searches alone.

Google make hundreds of changes to their algorithm each year, few of which are considered to be an ‘update’.  If you review Google’s opinion you will find that they do not consider this particular change to constitute the term ‘update’, rather they refer to it as the ‘Vince’s Change’.

It is understood that this change will not affect a wide number of searches and speculated that it would only really affect the short one or perhaps two word searches that contain ‘brand’ terms. So Google are the changing way it factors the weight a brand holds in to their system in an attempt to improve the relevance of a search results.

While it seemsthe that Google believe that this change is only for the purposes of more relevant search results other fear that this will mean only the larger organisation will rank for ‘brand’ searches. Should it be the case that only the larger conglomerates will rank well for ‘brand’ terms, it could be that smaller outfits may need to turn to sponsored links to achieve first page exposure.


Jon
Seo Specialist